Expert: Brenda Martin - 11/24/2010

Question
Dear Ms. Martin:
A Seventh-day Adventist is witnessing to me concerning his church. Of course, 7th day sabbath-keeping is a big issue with him. I attend church services on Sunday. He says that the sabbath is the only acceptable day of worship to God. I pointed out that the sabbath was given to Israel in Exodus 16 and 20. It was not given to all people. He countered that the sabbath was in existence since Creation. He quoted Genesis 2:2-3 as proof that the 7th day sabbath is not Israel's, but is required of all God's people. How should I answer his belief that the sabbath was before Sinai and so is still in effect for all people?

Thanks for your valuable time.

Michael  

Answer
"SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST; SABBATH IN EXISTENCE SINCE CREATION. GENESIS 2:2-3?"

Because God rested on the seventh creative day, some persons conclude that weekly sabbath observance existed from the time of the first man. They base their argument on the fact that God rested, blessed and made sacred the seventh creative day, which they believe was a literal twenty-four-hour day.

But where in this scripture is there any command to mankind to observe the seventh day of the week as a sabbath? Where is there even a suggestion that man is involved with what is said here? What we find is a statement of what God did when he came to the seventh creative day, not a statement of any law to man. Neither this scripture nor any other Bible text says, or even suggests, that sabbath observance was enjoined upon Adam or that he ever kept the seventh day of the week as a sabbath.

God established a pattern for the weekly Sabbath in the law that was given to Moses, so how could anyone be expected to obey such a law before it was given? It is not surprising, therefore, to find no record of anyone’s keeping a sabbath before the days of Moses, There is complete silence in the Scriptures about sabbath observance by any of the patriarchs before the days of Moses. There is not the slightest indication that the patriarchs considered the seventh day different from the other six.

When God gave Noah specific commands after the Flood, they involved such details as respect for life, the eating of meat and the abstaining from blood. But no mention was made of sabbath observance. The obvious conclusion that must be drawn from the complete silence on the subject during the two and a half millenniums before Moses is that God did not require sabbath observance during this time. It was not for the patriarchs.

It is a mistake to assume that God blessed and made sacred a literal twenty-four-hour day at the time he rested. By speaking about entering into God’s rest thousands of years after it had begun, the apostle Paul indicated that God’s rest day was still continuing in his day and so is a great period of time. “For in one place he has said of the seventh day as follows: ‘And God rested on the seventh day from all his works,’ and again in this place: ‘They shall not enter into my rest.’ Let us therefore do our utmost to enter into that rest.”—Heb. 4:4, 5, 11.

all the best
Brenda